The Ocean at The End of the Lane (and The Light of Knowledge)

There are things when you are a kid that you cannot understand. Things beyond your control. Things you are powerless to prevent or to change. Sometimes these are singular, sudden things, and sometimes they are... life. The ongoing patterns of how things are. The problem is that growing up and coming to understand those things doesn't change the experience of  them. It doesn't change what you felt, then, when you were a child and small and powerless.

The Ocean at The End of the Lane is a different kind of book from Neil Gaiman. He has called it his most personal work ever, and I think that shows in that it's written in first person, the first of his novels to be written that way. There are probably some of his short stories written in first person (the one about the cat in Smoke and Mirrors is poking at the back of my mind), but it's been long enough since I've read any of those to actually remember. It gives the story a very personal feel in a way that most first person projects do not. Also, and this could be because I have listened to him reading (I especially like February's) more than a few of his stories, I could just hear it in his actual voice in my head.

There are many things about the way he presents the story that I really like. There are few descriptions. The things that are are just the things that are. The sister is just the sister. We know that she's younger. The mom and dad are the mom and the dad. His father's face gets red when he's angry. It's the kind of thing a child would notice while the other things, the rest of everything, just is. There is no teenage girl staring into a mirror admiring her hair and thinking about her chocolate-brown eyes, and, for that, I was especially thankful. The things that are described are the kinds of things a child would notice, that would stick in his head. The car stuck in the mud. The face of  the opal miner. His bent comic book. It really allows the reader to just travel along with the boy, experiencing as he experiences. Feeling the events that happen much more than seeing them.

The novel centers around one of these events. A moment when a child finds out that he is, indeed, a small thing and powerless to withstand the force of an adult. This event is not the inciting incident nor is it the climax; it lies somewhere in-between, but it is the event upon which the story revolves. The thing that changed the life and perspective of the child. A moment where, after it has happened, you just want to go back to before it happened. But you can't go back.

It's also about the negligence of adults. How they can dismiss as unimportant something that is the world for a child. Or how they can think things are replaceable when they're not. A cat is not just a cat, not any cat, and a dog is not just a dog. No more than a child is just a child. Or, even, a toy--or a washbasin, just his size--is just a toy. Things can't always be solved with, "I'll buy you a new one" or "I'll get you something better."

And, then, there's the whole question of memory and what's real. Something we, I suppose, can never be quite sure of.
"Is it true?"
"What you remembered? Probably. More or less."

This is a pretty great book. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did The Graveyard Book or Neverwhere, but I think this one is going to linger much longer. Ask more questions. Give fewer answers. But that's okay. I like books that hang around in my head and make me think about them.

In other news:

Today is the FREE! release of Part Twenty-five: The Light of Knowledge in the ongoing Shadow Spinner serialization. Remember, if you want the whole story RIGHT NOW!, you can get it at that link I just left.

Also, be on the lookout for very special Shadow Spinner news coming up next week (I think). Here is the list of today's FREE! offerings (and, no, I have not managed to get the first few chapters collected, yet, so, hopefully, that will be next time):
"Part Twenty-five: The Light of Knowledge" (also available for FREE! tomorrow, Tuesday, July 9)
"Part Twenty-four: The Serpent"
"Part Twenty-three: The Harlot"
"Part Twenty-two: The Undying"
"Part Eighteen: The Angel"
"Part Seventeen: The Tree of Light"
"Part Sixteen: The Dark Tree"
"Part Fifteen: Food of the Garden"
"Part Fourteen: Anger and Laughter"
"Part Twelve: The Gash in the Floor"
"Part Eleven: The Kiss"
"Part Ten: The Broken Window"
"Part Nine: The Shadow of the Tree"
"Part Eight: The Cold and The Dark"
"Part Six: The Man with No Eyes"
"Part Five: The Police Car"
"Part Four: The Cop"
"Part Three: The Bedroom"
"Part Two: The Kitchen Table"
So... there you go. 19 of the 25 chapters. I should point out that "Part One: The Tunnel" is not free this week and won't be offered as a free promo ever again. In fact, it won't be available in this current format for much longer.

Going Neverwhere

Once upon a time, I wrote a post about commas and what they're for and what they're not for. It's a good post and one that's absolutely true. The fact that people are constantly starting sentences with a conjunction and, then, throwing a comma after it to show me that they are pausing after they say it drives me crazy. I don't care if you're saying, "So," and taking a breath; that comma doesn't go after it. For instance:
It is not:
"So, do you want a piece of pie or not?"
It is:
"So do you want a piece of pie or not?"
If you want to indicate the pause to the reader, use, "So... Do you want a piece of pie or not?"
The point being that the way we say this culturally, right now, is just that: it's the way we say it right now. Five years from now, we may not throw those pauses in all over the place while we speak, and I don't need you to show me how you're saying it. I just need you to convey the correct meaning.

Anyway... The post about the commas coupled with this more recent post about following the rules when you write serve as the backdrop to this review.

Neverwhere was the last book by Neil Gaiman that I hadn't read. I'm not sure why I hadn't read it; I just missed it somehow and, then, kept not getting around to it. But, finally, I did get around to it. It has displaced, surprisingly, The Graveyard Book as my favorite Gaiman novel. I say surprisingly because, at first, I was a bit confused by it. Not the story. I was confused by Gaiman's sudden inadequacy with the comma. They were all over the place and in places they didn't (and shouldn't) need to be. What the heck? None of Gaiman's other books have comma issues; why would this one?

Have you ever heard Neil Gaiman read one of his stories? Well, I have, and he has a particular cadence when he reads, when he's doing any public speaking (heck, for all I know, he always talks like that), and I realized by the time I had finished the prologue that the extra commas were there because Gaiman was, in fact, telling me how to breathe. Where to pause. When to go on. In effect, he was creating a particular atmosphere, a rhythm, that was just as if I was sitting here letting him read it to me. And it was awesome.

But, see, that's what you can do when you know what you're doing with the rules. It's knowing the rules and taking them and bending them to your purpose. Sure, probably more than half of the commas (actually, I'd bet more like 2/3 of the commas) don't belong. They're in places where they shouldn't be. But, then, you'd read too quickly and lose the atmosphere, the creepy, of the story. Gaiman wrote it to give you the effect of being underground, in tunnels, lost, confused. Of not knowing what's going on, whether your sane, or, even, if you are who you think you are.

I loved it.

And, now, I've flipped. I've gone from having his most recent novel as my favorite to having his first novel as my favorite. I don't think, either, that it's just because it's the one I've most recently read. I don't remember ever reading anything where the author paid so much attention to the atmosphere he was creating through his use of punctuation. Not that he necessarily did it on purpose, of that I have no idea, but he did do it.

And we haven't even started talking about the story yet. Which is great. Disconcerting. Full of interesting characters. The marquis. Croup. Vandemar. Things are rarely what they seem. Even when they are. "I've saved  his life four times today already." [Or something like that. I couldn't actually find the quote in what I felt was a reasonable amount of time.]

Best of all, though, it doesn't end the way you expect these kinds of stories to end. The way they usually end. And I would talk about that, but I don't want to talk about the ending, so I'm not going to. All I can say is that you should go read it. I'm fairly sure I'll have to read it again one of these days, and I really don't do that rereading thing, so that's saying quite a bit.

"...if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane."

[If, by chance, you do want to listen to Neil read, you can go to here. I've only listen to the first two so far, but they're worth it. (The January one reminds me of something Briane Pagel would write.)]